LINCOLN, Neb. — The U.S. State Department’s final environmental review of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline mirrors earlier conclusions that the pipeline wouldn’t significantly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

The report reiterated last year’s draft report conclusion that the pipeline is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction of oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil in the U.S.

Now that the State Department’s environmental review of TransCanada’s application for a federal permit to build the pipeline is complete, a 90-day review by various federal agencies will commence to determine whether the pipeline is in the national interest, since it crosses a national border. The final decision is expected to be made by Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama.

Canadian pipeline company TransCanadafirst applied for permission to build the pipeline in late 2008, but it ran into a wall of opposition in Nebraska. Nebraska pipeline fighters have taken part in and helped organize protests from the governor’s mansion to Washington, D.C., even as most of the Republican statewide public officials have pushed for approval.

First, the Obama administration showed during the course of the GM and Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings, that when it comes to Most Preferred Voter classes, some unsecured creditors - namely labor unions, and the millions of votes they bring - are more equal than other unsecured creditors - namely bondholders, and the zero votes they bring. Five years later we are about to get a stark reminder that under the superpriority rule of a community organizer for whom "fairness" trumps contract law any day, it is now Detroit's turn to make a mockery of the recovery waterfall. As it turns out, bankrupt Detroit is proposing to favor pension funds at roughly double the rate of bondholders to resolve an estimated $18 billion in long-term obligations, according to a draft of a debt-cutting plan reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The breakdown to unsecured stakeholders would be as follows: 40% recovery for pension funds, 20% for unsecured bondholders - all this to the same pari class of unsecured creditors. Because just like in Europe when cashing out on CDS in insolvent nations is prohibited as it would suggest that the entire Eurozone experiment is one epic farce, regardless of how much "political capital" Goldman Sachs has invested in it, so in the US municipal creditors are realizing that in the worst case scenario, they will be layered first and foremost by all those whose votes are critical in keeping this crony administration in power.

According to the WSJ the plan calls for recovery to be divided among the unsecureds amounting to $4.2 billion, more than the originally planned $2 billion to settle claims which included about $11 billion in unsecured debt, including $6 billion in health and other benefits for retirees; $3.5 billion for retiree pensions; and about $530 million in general-obligation bonds.

Last year two illegal aliens, both partners in a string of robberies in the Nashville are, were found guilty of a long string of robberies and the rape of an 11 year old girl.

The first criminal alien from El Savador was sentenced to 40 years for rape, kidnapping, and robbery.

His partner was found guilty of 41 charges, stemming from a string of robberies in South Nashville, which culminated in a rape of an 11-year old girl during one of their crimes. He was sentenced to 75 years in prison.

So... here we have a team of illegal aliens, brandishing guns, robbing homes in South Nashville over a three month period and -- in the process -- raping a child.

Yet there are still those who still condone and encourage the illegal invasion of millions of people across our borders. I can’t buy Sudafed with a license, but robbers, murderers, and rapists are allowed to cross our borders freely.

Only after they have harmed American citizens does the government do something. Think about that. It takes rape and murder for the feds to act.

First, we must control our borders. Secondly, only a limited number of highly vetted citizens from Latin and South America should be allowed to enter our nation.

Of course, for our side, that would dry up cheap labor. And for the Democratic-Marxist Party, that would frustrate their plan to change the ethnic makeup of America in order to increase the dependent classes that vote for them, depress wages, destroy the middle class and their bourgeoisie values of faith, hard work, private property, and capitalism.

QOTD: "We live in Arizona, we’re on the front line of the administration’s unwillingness to enforce immigration law and the Congress’ unwillingness to force the administration to enforce immigration law.

Rep. Ryan, your statements are absolute, utter bulls***. [If that’s offensive to you, come to Phoenix, we’ll take you to the border. You’ll see what “offensive” really is.]

This policy is clearly amnesty and the border will not be secured. You and the spineless Democrats and especially Republican “moderates” who are bought and paid for by the Chamber of Commerce don’t want the border secured. If you did, you’d have been raising hell since any of the previous immigration bills were passed ALL of which required the border to be secured." --Minority Report

Thursday, January 30, 2014

National Security: While the administration guts the U.S. military, Pentagon experts warn that as soon as five years from now our missile defenses might pose little problem for China's new hypersonic strike vehicle.

Behaving as the world power they are becoming, the Chinese are building state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles that Pentagon officials warn could overpower U.S. defenses in five years.

As we recently mentioned, China's defense ministry has confirmed the Jan. 9 test of a hypersonic glide vehicle, known as the WU-14. It was designed to evade our missile and other defense systems, such as the Aegis sea-based missile defense guarding our Pacific fleet and carrier battle groups.

On Tuesday, shortly before our commander in chief addressed his higher priorities, such as income inequality, in the State of the Union address, Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, expressed concern during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. He is troubled that Chinese military advances such as the WU-14 would overtake the defense capabilities of the U.S. as soon as five years from now.

A local news station brings viewers inside one Pennsylvania company as the employees there learn about their new health care plans under Obamacare...

"Look at the numbers," says the reporter of two employees. "Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared to Brian, Kristi, and Judy who have kids. they are going to pay twice that, four grand." The reporter adds that co-pays are being increased, too.

"I don't know how President Obama thinks he's helping us because we can't afford this, we can't afford to pay these co-pays, to pay these deductibles on what we're making," says one of the workers.

Now pretend you're in the GOP Establishment.

What would you do to exploit the tidal wave of rage washing over the countryside as Americans discover what socialized medicine really means?

So, what do you need to do to get us to stick with you and get us back into your good graces?Good question [{I’m glad I asked it}]

1). STOP SUPPORTING AMNESTY FOR 30 MILLION NEW DEMOCRATIC VOTERS.[Can I be any more emphatic on that point?]
Mark my words, you can either drop the insane idea of amnesty for the illegal invaders or you can destroy the party - It’s your choice.

Pushing amnesty will either create 30 Million new voters for Democratic largess or it will fractionalize the party so badly that it will no longer be the ‘Loyal opposition’ to the Socialist National left.
The GOP will be deader than a Bull Moose as a result – does that sound like a winning strategy?

Either way will mean one party Socialist Democratic national party rule for now until Armageddon.

2). Stop insanely nominating Rinocrats in the futile hope that the media will be ‘nice’ to you and not put the full weight of their propaganda machine to work shredding said candidate.

How many times do you need to repeat that insanity before you learn the lesson?

3). Stop trying to outbid the socialists with government largess – you cannot win the game, because they don’t care if they bankrupt the country in 5 years instead of 20.

You can’t outbid people willing to destroy the nation just attain some temporary power.

It should be plain that you need to stand up for Conservative values – that is the only thing that will save the country from it’s inevitable demise at the hands of the socialists.

IF you do not do those simple things to save the party and save the nation, I will bid you a quick goodbye and be on my way – along with millions of others.

You can stuff your endless appeals for my donations, and your admonitions to volunteer will fall on deaf ears.

We may be on our way to defeat with a third party – but we will do it with our head held high and our Conservative principles intact.

There is no earthly reason to stay with a sinking ship – and you people are heading straight on for an iceberg – and sadly, you don’t seem to know it.

We can and we will leave – many already have and the exits are getting pretty jammed up.

I can envision many of my Conservative colleagues yelling back at the paper – Hey, where have you been, sister? We abandoned the stupid party years ago – well, let me just say in my defense that in most abusive relationships, each has their personal breaking point – many have already reached and are beyond that point. I dare say that if the current events hold to the trends as they are now, many more will join them – as will I.

I encourage you to email this article to every Republican official you know. Time grows short to save the party -- and the country.

As Anthony Watts notes, "There’s never been any assertion that climate didn’t change — the idea that somehow this is something new to the 21st century is absurd. And, as science itself has demonstrated through history, it is never settled, it is always searching for new information, retesting, and sometimes discarding old ideas. Saying the science is settled is as ridiculous as the famous quote attributed to Lord Kelvin who said in 1900 ‘There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now.'"

Thus far, I've identified three segments of the population that cling to the notion of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming: nitwits, criminals and Marxists. But I repeat myself.

QOTD: "The University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database tracks terrorism incidents from 1970 to today: search for “Islam” and you find almost 5,000 entries. Search for “Christianity” and you will find a grand total of 14.

The NSA could probably save a lot of money — as well as abide by the Constitution — if it simply acknowledged the following:

A person with neither a first nor a last Muslim name stood only a 1 in 500,000 chance of being a suspected terrorist. The likelihood for a person with a first or a last Muslim name was 1 in 30,000. For a person with first and last Muslim names, however, the likelihood jumped to 1 in 2,000 (Levitt & Dubner, Super Freakonomics, 2009, p. 93).

Clearly, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Islam is the world’s major ideological motivator of terrorism and violence. (I have neither the time, nor the patience, to yet again demonstrate the legitimate Islamic roots of violence. Ray Ibrahim’s brilliant article should be all the proof needed for those able to handle the truth.) Yet Eric Holder and his boss would have the federal authorities most responsible for protecting the public — led by the FBI — pretend that up is down, freedom is slavery, and Islam is peaceful except when “twisted” by a “handful of extremists.”

Instead of ardent Islamic beliefs being treated as a clear marker for potential terrorism, they are now a talisman protecting the holder not just from scrutiny, but suspicion.

Obama and Holder are transforming the U.S. into a dhimmi nation: one that cowers before Islamic law and demands that its non-Muslim citizens — especially its 240 million Christians — meekly accept their second-class status and never broach the glaringly obvious fact of Islamic violence, even if this means making all non-Muslims less safe. The question for those of us in the majority, then: just how long will we put up with such a dangerous policy?" --Timothy Furnish

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Let me be clear about this. Let me help some of these Republicans here and of course tomorrow's hosts, they may want to cherry-pick some of this. This president has created more poverty, more economic inequality, more economic dislocation, more crushing debt than any president in modern American history including Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover.

This president has set back the economic progress of women more than any modern president. This president has set back the economic progress of minorities, including African-Americans, more than any modern president. This president has set back economic opportunity for our young people -- our children and our grandchildren -- more than any modern president because he has embraced the most ideological, the most radical form of economics. A system they cannot work; a system that will not work; a system that is impossible.

He's spreading misery, he's spreading destitution and he's spreading poverty. This is not the America that the Framers established. This is not the America that we were born into, each and every one of us. And because he's increasingly frustrated by his own incompetence and failure. What is he doing?

He's dividing this nation, he's Balkanizing this nation along every conceivable route that he can find -- whether it's religious, whether it's economic, whether it's race, whether it's age, whether it's income, whether it's religion. And he's seizing more and more power as he panics, as he becomes desperate, as imperial minds do. Yes, he's an imperial president. And just as I said, this president has been conducting a certain, a sure gradual coup which is now being picked up.

He's also an imperial president, which is also now being understood. He's changing our system of government; he's destroying our economic system. He's nationalizing businesses and industries through the front door and through the back door. Did you know they have over 6,000 regulations and rules that they're preparing to unleash on us?

Do you know that he's put out the word to his cabinet, to his agency heads and to everybody in the federal government that this is their time? Now come hell or high water by 2016 when he leaves office he wants thousands and thousands of regulations pouring out at the EPA, the [Agriculture] Department, the Education department, the Energy department, Interior and all the rest.

This man is a one-man wrecking ball, that's exactly what he is. He wants to talk about inequality; we want to talk about liberty. And it is liberty that we need to talk about.

In case anyone needed more proof that amnesty only encourages more illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released its 2013 apprehension numbers that show that southern border apprehensions rose 16 percent last year. While this might seem like the DHS is doing a great job, it actually indicates that more unlawful immigrants are trying to cross the border.

Critically, it means that more unlawful immigrants are crossing successfully, since for every one who is caught another gets through or turns back to Mexico in order to try to cross somewhere else. Of course, some sneak through without the U.S. ever knowing, making it difficult to accurately estimate how many thousands make it across every year.

As more try to cross the border illegally, more will succeed. Regrettably, Congress’s discussion of amnesty has played a role in this increase. Stories from the Mexican side of the border indicate that the word is out among would-be-unlawful immigrants—the U.S. is considering amnesty, so cross now and maybe you can get some kind of legalization. Congress’s very discussion of amnesty, whether it is a special pathway to citizenship or just a pathway to legalization, is encouraging illegal immigration and making it more difficult for the Border Patrol to secure the border.

To try to make it seem like their irresponsible discussion of amnesty isn’t so bad, some in Congress are proposing various security and enforcement bills to crack down on illegal immigration in exchange for amnesty. Most of these policies, however, are incredibly flawed and do little more than create misguided metrics and extra reports for DHS, while providing no real security.

More importantly, why should we assume that these bills would be treated differently than current laws? The DHS is supposed to have already secured the border and be enforcing our immigration laws, but it isn’t doing either.

An anonymous tipster writes, "...according to Niesen, Obama's 2014 SOTU registered only a 20.7 household share rating... and according to the chart in the story below which goes back to 1993, no President has had a lower rating. I don't know how far back you'd have to go to find a lower rating, but it is at least the lowest in over 20 years. He's now historically boring and tough to watch."

On Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014 President Barack Obama delivered his second State of the Union address of his second term in office. The address was carried live from 9:00 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. on 13 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. The sum of the average audience for those networks was 33,299,172 viewers with a combined household rating of 20.7. The networks carrying the address live were CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, Azteca, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera America, Galavision and Mun2.

Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the president's persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. On Monday, Mr. Obama acted unilaterally to raise the minimum wage paid by federal contracts, the first of many executive actions the White House promised would be a theme of his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The president's taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates." America's Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too.

Rule of law doesn't simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. That no one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

Yet rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying and waiving portions of the laws he is charged to enforce. When Mr. Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

On many of those policy issues, reasonable minds can disagree. Mr. Obama may be right that some of those laws should be changed. But the typical way to voice that policy disagreement, for the preceding 43 presidents, has been to work with Congress to change the law. If the president cannot persuade Congress, then the next step is to take the case to the American people. As President Reagan put it: "If you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat" of electoral accountability.

President Obama has a different approach. As he said recently, describing his executive powers: "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone." Under the Constitution, that is not the way federal law is supposed to work.

The Obama administration has been so brazen in its attempts to expand federal power that the Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the Justice Department's efforts to expand federal power nine times since January 2012.

QOTD: "The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.

It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention." --Kevin D. Williamson

• Benghazi – we don’t know: why the ambassador was there, who ordered military to stand down, what Obama did for 8 hours, who gave Susan Rice the video talking points, or why Hillary Clinton and Obama tried to perpetuate the lies

• IRS – used to target perceived enemies of the Obama agenda

• AP – no one held accountable for spying on the media

• James Rosen and his parents- Holder not held accountable for lying to Congress about his role in spying on a journalist and lying to a federal judge to obtain the secret warrant

QOTD: "That some of the poor get most of their income from the government is not to argue that welfare recipients are lazy or don’t wish to work. Rather it suggests that the incentives they face may make them reluctant to accept employment opportunities at offered wages. We can think through this proposition logically: Suppose I offer you $240 per week in financial aid while you are between jobs. You would be receiving that money for zero hours of work per week. Being an honest person, you go out and look for work, eventually finding a job that pays you $8 per hour, or $320 per week working full time. Should you take that job?

On the one hand, you would receive more money by taking that job than you would by accepting the aid. However, economics teaches us the value in thinking at the margin. Doing so reveals that you would only receive an additional $120 per week in exchange for your 40 hours of work. In other words, taking into account your opportunity cost, you would really only be earning $3 per hour! While I certainly cannot speak for everyone, I feel reasonably confident in saying that few people in this country value their time at only $3 per hour. Realizing this, it is no puzzle why people receiving aid tend to stay unemployed for so long." --David J. Hebert

Monday, January 27, 2014

Free Speech: The IRS scandal is not only not over but is getting worse, with a call by New York's senior senator for the already-politicized agency to use its power to tax to destroy the conservative grass-roots movement.

Arguing that the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision allowed Tea Party groups to "funnel millions of undisclosed dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government," Charles Schumer wants the IRS and other government agencies to take on the Tea Party through their administrative powers.

"It is clear that we will not pass anything legislatively as long as the House of Representatives is in Republican control, but there are many things that can be done administratively by the IRS and other government agencies," Schumer said in a speech before the leftist think tank Center for American Progress.

Calling for the IRS to use its powers to resume war on the First Amendment and free speech he doesn't like in the hopes of electing more Democrats, Schumer said: "We must redouble those efforts immediately."

Schumer was the author of the 2010 Disclose Act that failed to make it through Congress but would have required the disclosure of corporate donors to tax-exempt organizations, and membership and donor lists of the groups running "issue" ads.

"The bill was designed to embarrass companies," Schumer admitted, and its "deterrent effect should not be underestimated."

Advocating the use of government power to harass and intimidate political opponents is nothing new to Schumer. Along with Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Al Franken of Minnesota, he sent a similar letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in February 2012 asking the IRS to investigate 12 conservative groups he accused of violating their tax-exempt status and engaging in coordinated political activity.

This effort to use government power to fundamentally transform our political system more along the lines of the Venezuelan model includes new IRS rules for 501(c)(4) organizations that would redefine "candidate-related political activity" and make virtually everything such tax-exempt political groups do a taxable activity.

Lopez-Bautista, at his trial, called this a land of opportunity. Why, yes it is, for enterprising criminals from Mexico.

BALLSTON SPA -- Antonio Lopez-Bautista, an immigrant who entered the country illegally and attacked and sexually assaulted a 67-year-old woman on the city's west side last May, was sentenced Monday to spend a determinate sentence of 11 years in jail.

After he serves the sentence, he will be deported to his native Mexico.

Lopez-Bautista, a 19-year-old resident of South Federal Street in Saratoga Springs, was convicted of attempted kidnapping, sexual abuse, two counts of assault and criminal obstructions of breathing. He was acquitted of another assault charge, first- and second-degree robbery and attempted rape.

The violent attack was captured on surveillance video and showed Lopez-Bautista sneaking up to the victim's car and opening the door, pulling her out, dragging her down the street and ripping off her clothes. The victim was waiting for her husband to leave work at about 4 a.m.

...Before he was sentenced, an interpreter read two letters on behalf of Lopez-Bautista, one written to the victim and the other to the judge. In the letters, Lopez-Bautista apologizes many times and asks for mercy from the judge. He also says his inebriated state, from an abundance of alcohol and cough syrup, is to blame for mistaking his victim for a political oppressor in Mexico.

...On Monday, new information regarding Lopez-Bautista's illegal entrance to the United States came to light. He first came into the country illegally via the Arizona border in April 2009. He was deported that time, but successfully crossed into the country again one month later. He has illegally remained in the country since.

"I will never return to this country again, although it was filled with opportunity," Lopez-Bautista wrote.

Just read all of the stories and here that I have gathered over the years. These aren’t isolated events, but rather a wave of criminals hiding among a wave of illegal immigrants.

Earlier this month, because of what you did, it became illegal for insurance companies to discriminate against the up to 129 million Americans living with pre-existing conditions. Young Americans are able to stay on their parents’ health care plans as they get on their feet, and we can now know that our insurance companies won’t put lifetime caps on our coverage.

You should be so proud of that. That happened because you organized, you talked to your friends and neighbors, and you chipped in what you could, when you could, to elect Barack and a Congress who supported his agenda.

Today, I’m asking you to do it again.

So before Barack gives his State of the Union address tomorrow, chip in $10 or more and help protect Obamacare:

(link removed)

Thank you so much,

Michelle

I guess that’s the least she could do, since her husband took her on a lavish 4 million dollar vacation to Hawaii just recently.

Oh, wait – WE, the taxpayers, covered that.

Well, then, maybe it’s because Barack sent Michelle to Maui AFTER the Obama family’s holiday vacation, so she could celebrate her 50th birthday with her gal pal Oprah.

Oh, wait – yeah, WE the taxpayers covered a huge chunk of Michelle’s second vacation in as many months, too.

Jay Carney admitted that taxpayers picked up some of the cost of Michelle Obama’s trip to Maui and her travel back to Washington D.C.

QOTD: "While Democrats have a set script with regard to campaign rhetoric -- they demonize Republicans while claiming that only Democrats are concerned for the needy and less privileged -- in order to understand their true character, it is necessary to look at how they behave once they are in power. This is most clearly revealed through how they respond to perceived threats to their control of money.

Democrats have shown a consistent inability to balance budgets at the local, state, and national level. And after creating a fiscal crisis, Democrats always say that if they are not given more money "essential services" will be cut back. This implies that they will make the voters suffer if they are unable to persuade the GOP to give them more money by raising the deficit ceiling; revealing that they practice moral blackmail as standard operating procedure. Last year President Obama went out of his way to close off the WW II memorial to visiting veterans...

Democrats, paradoxically, always want to punish the poor whenever they don't get their way. And it's always about getting more money: they want the debt limit raised or taxes increased.

Voters fail to understand the true meaning of this tactic. If Democrats were really concerned for the poor, voters should expect them to say that they will make any spending cuts necessary in order to preserve essential services. They would bear any burden, climb any mountain, to make sure the elderly and most needy do not lose their essential Federal support. Instead, they hold the needy hostage to satisfy their insatiable lust for power and money."--Michael Bargo Jr.